


The Adventures of Alex & Nic, Canadian Cinnamon Rolls in a Strange, Foreign Land

by E_Salvatore



Series: Tagged: TBTP Tumblr Fics [4]
Category: Tanis (Podcast), The Black Tapes Podcast
Genre: Best Friends For Life, Gen, Tumblr Fic, look at these precious cinnamon rolls, with a special appearance by Amalia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 17:53:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5794123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/E_Salvatore/pseuds/E_Salvatore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Here's some backstory for Nic and Alex that I originally developed for a short filler scene in a fic, later adapted into a Tumblr post and am now posting here because the world needs more Alex and Nic, Podcast Buddies for Life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Adventures of Alex & Nic, Canadian Cinnamon Rolls in a Strange, Foreign Land

When Nic is three, he comes to a startling revelation: the rest of his siblings are all roughly the same size, while he barely comes up to their father’s knees. It’s only years later that his parents gently explain that he was somewhat of a surprise, that they’d thought their child-rearing days to be behind them and hadn’t really been expecting him. It doesn’t mean they love him any less, of course, because surprises are always good things.

But that’s many years from now. As a three-year-old, all Nic knows is that his siblings have inside jokes and references he doesn’t get, memories and funny stories he wasn’t there for and worst of all: things that he’ll only understand  _when you’re older, Nico_.

As a three-year-old with siblings at least ten years older than him, a father constantly away for work and a mother who’s only just made the transition from stay-at-home mom to working mom and is unwilling to backtrack (unable to, as well, because now they’ll need to put _five_ kids through college), all Nic knows is that he’s really, really lonely.

Until the day the Reagans move in a few houses down the street, and bring with them their three-year-old, Alex. It’s not long before their mothers are setting up play-dates for the only two kids below the age of 12 in the neighborhood, and once Nic’s mom grows comfortable with the Reagans, he finds himself spending more and more of his time there - a better solution than sending him to daycare, his mother says.

Nic doesn’t really mind. Alex is the first friend he’s ever had and she likes having him around. Plus, she’s always a blast to be around and he’s never seen her looking sad, but Nic thinks she must be even lonelier than him - after all, she has no siblings at all. So they make a good pair.

The years pass.

More children their age move into the neighborhood, and when they get to school, they find themselves with more friends than they can handle. As they get older, Alex grows increasingly fond of teasing him. _Hey, remember when you used to wish you had more than one friend? Be careful what you wish for, Nic!_

But it doesn’t really matter - friends come and go, usually before his social calendar can get _really_ packed. ( _Look, I can only handle so many birthday parties in a month, Nico,_  his mother tells him apologetically the first time he hands her five party invitations at once.)

Alex is the only one to stay but then again, Alex isn’t really a friend anymore - more like a sister, at this point, though she’s sure to stick her tongue out at him whenever he reminds her that she’s technically three months younger which makes her the little sister.

Still - Alex stays.

The years pass.

They’re seventeen and planning for college and Alex’s father is unbelievably proud that she wishes to take up journalism. His parents don’t greet his announcement with the same amount of enthusiasm but it’s better than his brother (who’s still trying to make it in L.A.) so they pack him up and ship him off to college along with Alex.

America is different. Somehow, he hadn’t been expecting that.

At least their classmates are mostly entertained by their accents so their _sorrys_ and _abouts_ don’t get made fun of (too much) and in a school as diverse as theirs, two Canadians are hardly of interest.

A second-generation Russian with an exotic and thick accent - now that’s another matter entirely.

Amalia is a year older than them and pretty much a rockstar in their circles. Does that keep Alex from walking straight up to her at a party and introducing herself and Nic? Of course not.

When Amalia starts joining them for lunch and crashing their study sessions to give them tips, Nic finds himself blinking at her as if she’s a mirage of some sort. He can’t quite figure out why she would choose to hang out with the Moose Twins, as they’ve been affectionately (and somewhat offensively) christened by their classmates.

Eventually, he puts two and two together and realizes that Amalia spends way too much time staring at Alex with a dopey smile on her face. It takes Alex a bit longer to catch on, and after that there’s a few Amalia-free weeks. She completely understands that Alex isn’t looking to get herself involved in anything other than the school’s newspaper, of course, but it’s going to take a while for her to see Alex as a best friend instead of a potential girlfriend.

Years later, they’ll look back at this and Amalia will laugh, thanking God that nothing ever came of her little crush because her relationships don’t tend to last, and she’s loathe to imagine an alternate reality where she and Alex had dated for a short while and then gone on to live separate lives.

Years later, Amalia will laugh and then turn to Nic with a thoughtful look on her face, and that will eventually lead to two years of dating before they both decide they’re better off pulling an Alex-and-Amalia and just like that, they go back to being two-thirds of the most valuable friendship in their lives.

But that’s a few years from now. For now they wait until Amalia comes back one day and starts looking at Alex the same way she looks at Nic, and all is as it should be for the rest of their time in college.

The years pass.

Amalia moves to Russia and just like that they’re back to being Alex and Nic, Nic and Alex. They’ve been in Seattle for years now; started interning for PNWS when they were eighteen and eventually graduated into full-time producers and later on, podcast hosts.

Seattle is home and PNWS is family, but they’re still just the slightest bit out of place. Being a two-hour drive from home means you visit often enough to keep your accent, and it’s become something of a signature for them now, an easy way to identify them when they sit in on panels that feature a dozen similar-sounding voices on the radio. But it also marks them as something different.

Nic doesn’t quite mind. Friends come and go but Alex will always be there, so who cares if the two of them mostly keep to themselves (they’re not being snobbish; sometimes they’re just too tired to deal with people who get way too excited to share their Canadian jokes).

Things start to change when they launch The Black Tapes Podcast - Alex is almost never around and even when she is, most of her time is occupied by Strand. Nic's pretty okay with that, though. He’s working on a side project of his own and that’s steadily taking up more and more of his time as well. Besides, he and Alex will have plenty of time to hang out when they’re both retired and back to freezing their butts off in Canada. They can afford to spend a few years a bit distant from each other, mainly because he knows Alex isn’t going anywhere and neither is he. Friends come and go, right? Strand and MK and Jeff… eventually their shows will end and it’ll just be him and Alex again.

Or as a Tumblr post he stumbles upon one day calls them: _smol Canadian reporter twins._

He should ask if Alex wants to get that on matching tee shirts or something.

**Author's Note:**

> A reminder that this was originally written as a Tumblr post so... be gentle?


End file.
